When
shame
prevents
progress
Is flight shame triggered by
the provision of information
about flying and the
consequences it has on the
environment, and does this, in
the end, influence people's
flight behavior?
Sanne Mondria
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WHEN SHAME PREVENTS PROGRESS:
Is flight shame triggered by the provision of information about flying and the
consequences it has on the environment, and does this, in the end, influence
people's flight behavior?
by
Sanne Mondria
University of Groningen
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PREFACE
In front of you lies a Master thesis about flight shame. This new phenomenon, which popped up in November 2018, originally comes from the word ‘flygskam’ which is Swedish for flight shame. Flight shame can be explained as feelings of shame someone experiences when travelling by airplane, knowing that it is very bad for the environment. In this Master thesis I wanted to investigate whether feelings of flight shame are triggered by the provision of information about flying and the consequences it has on the environment, and if this ultimately influences people's flight behavior. The Master thesis has been written to fulfill the graduation requirements for the Master in Marketing Management at the Faculty of Economics and Businesses at the University of Groningen.
The topic of this study is quite a new research area, which makes it highly interesting and challenging, which I like, but on the other hand it was also difficult for me to make predictions and to create a solid framework, as there was no study that I could refer to. However, in the end I have been able to give an answer to my research questions and problem statement and to provide some insights into this new phenomenon.
I would like to thank my supervisor dr. M. Keizer, for his guidance, feedback sessions and enthusiastic support during the past couple of months. Furthermore, I would like to thank the participants who completed my survey, because without them I would not have been able to conduct this study. It was also very helpful for me to discuss this study with friends and family and they kept me motivated throughout the research process.
I hope you enjoy reading this Master thesis.
Sanne Mondria
3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 5 1.1 Problem statement 6 1.2 Research questions 7 2. Theoretical background 8 2.1 Shame 8
2.2 Non-sustainable behaviour and shame 9
2.3 Flygskam 10
2.4 Information provision, knowledge and behaviour 11 2.5 Sustainable actions with regards to flying 14 2.6 Conceptual framework 17
3. Method 18
3.1 Design & participants 18
3.2 Procedure 19 3.3 Materials 19 3.4 Analysis plan 22 4. Results 24 4.1 Descriptive statistics 25 4.2 Research questions 27 4.3 Complementary findings of the study 32
5. Discussion 37
5.1 Practical implications 41 5.2 Limitations and opportunities for future research 42
5.3 Conclusion 44
6. References 45
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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research was to investigate whether feelings of flight shame are triggered by the provision of information about flying and the consequences it has on the environment and if this, in the end, influences people's flight behaviour. Flight shame can be explained as feelings of shame someone experiences when travelling by airplane, knowing that it is very bad for the environment. An online survey was conducted to give an answer to this problem statement. Several statistical tests were used to analyze the data. The results show that the provision of information in this study did not lead to more feelings of flight shame, compared to the group that did not see the message. Moreover, participants did not have a very strong attitude towards feelings of flight shame, presumably because it’s such a new phenomenon.
(Word count: 137)
Keywords: Flight shame, information intervention, environmental values, consumer
flightbehaviour, CO2ZERO
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1. INTRODUCTION
Why is flying so popular nowadays? Flying is still considered as the fastest way to move from A to B. Moreover, in some cases, it is even the only way to get from A to B. You can be either productive during the flight or the opposite, take a nap. Once you are awake and have been lucky enough to get the window seat, you can also enjoy the sometimes-breathtaking views (Becker, 2014). Furthermore, the prices of flight tickets are decreasing. Airfares have been falling for years now and this is mainly due to the highly competitive market and the decreasing fuel costs (Economist, 2018). This taken together makes air travelling appealing for many people. Likewise, air traffic is estimated to increase by 6% in 2019, compared to 2018. It is expected that air traffic passenger demand is still going to increase until 2030 (Statista, 2018).
Nonetheless, the consequence of all this air travelling is pollution. According to Sullivan (2018), it is not just about the Co2 emissions that are warming the globe, but there are many more pollutants. ‘Other aviation emissions such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), water vapor, particulates, contrails and cirrus changes have additional warming effects’ (Sullivan, 2018). One way to inform consumers about their human demand on nature is with the use of the footprint phenomenon. This is a way to give consumers an indication of how much they are polluting the environment (Oxford dictionary, 2019). In other words: ‘the amount of nature that humans are thought to occupy in order to live using existing technologies’ (Karlsson, 2016: 25). Air travelling is considered as a large part of someone’s footprint and by flying, passengers send a huge amount of warming gases into the atmosphere, which is greatly polluting the environment (Schlossberg, 2017). But how much does the consumer actually care about how bad air travelling is for our planet?
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feelings of flight shame than the consumers that have less or no knowledge about the polluting aspect of air travelling? Additionally, when consumers are having these feelings of flight shame, does this truly influence their flight behaviour?
Having the above in mind, this study will contribute to theory due to the current lack of research and understanding of flight shame as it is a fairly new movement. Furthermore, the potential practical contribution of this study might be of importance in the near future to guide consumers or influence consumer flying behaviour. On the other side, the study might also be of practical relevance for the airline industry as this growing industry might not want to lose passengers in the future. Thus if we know when passengers develop feelings of flight shame, we can either trigger that or prevent that depending on the desired outcome. Additionally, it is interesting to research whether consumers are willing to pay more for their flight to fly Co2 neutral, as there are quite some sustainable airlines on the market nowadays that offer such a programme. More interestingly, can this choice for a sustainable airline moderate the impact of information provision on consumer flying behaviour?
In this research paper, we will dig deeper into interventions for information provision and the effect it might have on flight shame and thus on flight behaviour. This will be tested later on with the use of a manipulated experiment in a survey setting in which half of the participants will see a message about flying and how polluting it is for the environment and the other half will not. Through this, feelings of flight shame might arise and thus participants might think differently about their future flight behaviour. Moreover, the focus of this paper will be on leisure travellers only as their travel purpose is not obligatory or related to business and thus they are not obligated to fly. The literature review will further review already existing theories on the different topics that are briefly mentioned above. At the end of the literature review, the conceptual framework of the research will be presented. Following from there, the method chapter, results chapter and discussion chapter will be given where the findings of the research will be shown and discussed.
1.1 Problem statement
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1.2 Research questions
• RQ 1: Does the provision of information about flying and the effect it has on the environment, trigger feelings of flight shame?
• RQ 2: Does the provision of information about flying and the effect it has on the environment, impacts flight behaviour?
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2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Shame
Shame is described and defined in many different theories and used in different schools of thought. One way to look at it is from an emotion, affect-based perspective. According to Gilbert and Andrews (1998), the emotion of anxiety is central to feelings of shame. In line with these feelings of anxiety, Fisher and Tangney (1995) mention that shame has all to do with feelings of fear, being looked at and being negatively evaluated by others. Retzinger, (1991, 1995) and Scheff (1987) stated that shame can be experienced differently, namely from an anger perspective. People that are feeling ashamed might affect an emotional response of anger in a given situation. This emotional process usually occurs rapidly and therefore they do not consciously experience the shame itself. Having said that, Power and Dalgleish (1997) stated that feelings of shame are arising from (self-) disgust. Meaning that one does not like the way oneself is behaving and gets an unpleasant feeling by thinking about it.
Nevertheless, the most persuasive meaning of shame that is used nowadays is defined in the Oxford Dictionary (2019) as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior”. In other words, shame can be described as an unpleasant feeling one can experience after doing something wrong. Furthermore, when one experiences feelings of shame, it is usually visible to others. Such expressions of shame may include avoiding eye-contact, turning your face away and slouching one’s shoulders. We basically withdraw from any contact with others (Scholte, 2011). On another note, the context in which people can feel different feelings of shame is also debatable. Gilbert and Andrews (1998) make a distinction between the social world, the internal world or a combination of these two. The social world refers to how other people see you, whereas the internal world refers to how one sees oneself. The combination of the two contexts refers to how one sees himself as a result of how that person thinks that others see him.
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2.2 Non-sustainable behaviour and shame
Can consumers actually be ashamed of behaving in a non-sustainable way? Dickerson, Thibodeau, Aronson and Miller (1992), concluded from their research that as a reaction of behaving in a non-environmentally way, people feel emotionally embarrassed and this, in turn, results in increased pro-environmental behaviour. Furthermore, Kaiser, Schultz, Berenguer, Corral-Verdugo and Tankha (2008) and Kals (1996) indicate that ‘guilt and shame, associated with an insufficient environmentally protective effort, may encourage people to get involved in the conservation of natural resources’ (Verdugo, 2012: 652). In other words, due to the insufficient protection of our environment in general, people might feel guilty and ashamed, and this in return stimulates people to behave in a more sustainable way. In line with this, Malott (2010) states that negative emotions such as fear and anxiety arise when people see the negative consequences of environmentally harmful actions, and this promotes sustainable behaviour. On the other hand, Malott (2010) also states that these feelings of fear and anxiety are not always enough to really increase someone’s pro-environmental behaviour. Moreover, they state the following: ‘so we put off what we know we should do, not because we don’t care, not because we don’t believe the data, but because we can always do it tomorrow; after all, one more day doesn’t really matter—and, in fact, it really doesn’t. The problem is that the days turn into weeks, then months, then years’ (Malott, 2010: 179). What he is trying to say here is that we can all have the intention to change and behave more environmentally friendly, however, since there is no fine or penalty for not behaving in a particular way at a particular moment in time, there is no pressure to truly change and act more environmentally friendly today, even though you may care about the environment.
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2.3 Flygskam
The translation ‘flight shame’ comes from the Swedish word ‘flygskam’. The Olympic Champion named Björn Ferry instigated the flygskam trend. Ferry’s job requires him to travel throughout Europe, which he does by train rather than airplane. ‘His boycott of air travel has triggered a huge movement of like-minded travellers in the Scandinavian country’ (Dunkl, 2018). It is, in particular, a special occurrence because Swedish inhabitants are flying seven times more often than the average European inhabitant. Due to this flygskam trend, interrail tickets are rising in popularity in Sweden (Houwelingen, 2019). According to Den Boon (2018), the word flygskam has found its way via Germany to The Netherlands, and has been translated into ‘vliegschaamte’ and implemented in the Dutch online dictionary the ‘Van Dale’ since November 2018. But what is actually the exact definition of this new word? The Swedish word flygskam can be either translated into the English word ‘flying shame’ or ‘flight shame’. Both definitions are not yet described in any of the following online dictionaries: Oxford dictionary, Cambridge dictionary, Macmillan dictionary, Collins dictionary, Chambers dictionary and Merriam-Webster dictionary. However, the definitions that are available on the internet are as follows.
Firstly, according to a Swedish news website, The Local, Edwards (2018) defined flygskam as: ‘'Flying shame' or being ashamed of flying due to the impact on the climate’. Secondly, according to the Guardian, a UK news website, words such as flygskam and vliegschaamte mean: ‘ “fly shame”, or the guilt that travellers experience when they fly off somewhere knowing they are contributing to climate change’ (Vidal, 2019). Thirdly, according to Dunkl (2018) who writes for a German website that is focused on sustainable developments, defines flygskam as ‘that icky feeling that you get when you take a flight because you know how bad it is for the environment to fly’. Fourthly, the Dutch online dictionary ‘Van Dale’ defines vliegschaamte as: ‘The shame that someone experiences when he or she travels by airplane, while there are less environmentally harmful alternatives available to travel’ (Van Dale, 2018) – translated from the Dutch definition.
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feeling of having committed wrong or failed in an obligation’. Whereas shame is defined as: ‘a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour’. The ‘icky feeling’ as described by Dunkl (2018) refers to an unpleasant feeling. All three ways of feeling describe that someone will get an unpleasant feeling that does not feel right when air travelling. Furthermore, the definition of the Dutch Van Dale (2018), is the only definition stating that someone experiences shame due to flying, because there are less polluting alternatives available to go from A to B. The definition of flight shame that will be used in this paper is ‘the feelings of shame someone experiences when travelling by airplane, knowing that it is very bad for the environment’. This definition contains elements of shame and combines it with the knowledge aspect someone might have about how bad it is for the environment to travel by airplane.
2.4 Information provision, knowledge and behaviour
First of all, where is Flygskam coming from and what causes this feeling? In this part of the literature review, we will discuss how the provision of information about environmental issues and the consequences it has on the environment can influence consumer behaviour.
An intervention that is studied most frequently is the diffusion of information towards consumers, e.g. to make them aware of recycling methods and patterns (Schultz, Oskamp, & Mainieri, 1995). The aim of the diffusion of information about recycling is obviously to inform consumers about recycling and make them more knowledgeable on the subject. The assumption is that this will lead to increased recycling behaviour among consumers (Schultz, 1999). Nonetheless, the diffusion of information as an intervention to create knowledge in consumers’ minds, and subsequently improve their recycling behaviours is not always effective (Leeming, Dwyer, Porter, & Cobern, 1993; Porter, Leeming, & Dwyer, 1995). Several studies (Gardner & Stern, 1996; Leeming et al., 1993) show that the consequences of this information intervention do not indicate strong effects between the intervention and recycling behaviour. However, according to Kaiser and Fuhrer (2003, 609) ‘knowledge remains an important and highly significant predictor of ecological behavior’. Moreover, the so-called ‘knowledge-deficit intervention’ is still a very popular tool when trying to change behaviour among consumers due to the fact that this tool is very cheap and easy to use (Schultz, 1999).
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specific topic can guide consumers to act in the desired way. One way to provide information effectively to non-environmentally-conscious people about pro-environmental behaviour is with the provision of information in the way of ‘free papers’. Free papers can be explained as ‘a widespread form of local media’ (Lee, Kurisu & Hanaki, 2015: 31). Another knowledge intervention with regards to pro-environmental behaviour was stated by Fuhrer, Kaiser, Seiler and Maggi (1995). Their outcomes show that to form environmental values and intentions, face-to-face communication has more impact. Whereas for the environmental knowledge component, mediated communication is more effective. Mediated communication can be described in terms of communicating in any other form than face-to-face, e.g. by email, by writing or by using a smartphone to communicate.
In this thesis study, a news article from the BBC consisting of a short text providing basic information about how polluting flying is for the environment will be provided to half of the survey respondents. It has been chosen to provide a short news article from the BBC as even the provision of a little bit of information can already guide people in the desired way. Furthermore, as stated earlier on, free papers are an effective means of information provision, as well as any form of mediated communication to relay the message.
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need to give up personal comfort in favour of the environment that does not directly offer anything tangible in return.
Yet Kaiser, Wölfing and Fuhrer (1999) stated some contradictory findings. The three scales that they used to measure environmental knowledge, environmental values and ecological behavioural intention consisted of 28 items in total and participants had to indicate on a five-point Likert scale to what extent they agree. They found that someone who has knowledge about the environment and environmental values is actually more likely to behave in an environmentally friendly way. They found that ‘40 per cent of the variance of ecological behaviour intention was explained by environmental knowledge and environmental values’ (Kaiser, Wölfing & Fuhrer, 1999: 12). A study performed by Fridgen (1994) showed that a part of the participants in their study did not feel responsible for any harmful actions towards the environment, even though 50% of those polluting actions are performed by us, humans. It might be the case that this group of participants was not aware that these environmental harmful actions were caused by humans, and therefore did not feel responsible. On the other hand, participants that felt highly committed to the environment, when seeing the same environmental harmful actions, felt highly responsible for it. In other words, when people care about the environment and feel responsible for it, this impacts their ecological behaviour intentions (Fridgen, 1994). Kaiser, Ranney, Hartig and Bowler (1999: 71), concluded that ‘forty-five to 50% of the ecological behaviour intentions, which, in turn, predicted 76%-94% of one's ecological behaviour, could be explained by environmental knowledge, environmental values, and feelings of responsibility toward the environment’. This indicates knowledge about the environment, environmental values and feeling responsible towards the environment as predictors of environmentally friendly behaviour.
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developed to create knowledge and awareness - and therefore change attitudes (Howarth, Waterson & MacDonald, 2009) - are insufficient in changing consumer behaviour.
In conclusion, it can be said that the provision of information leads to knowledge, but that knowledge does not always lead to the desired behaviour. In some cases, consumers do not see the direct consequences of environmentally harmful behaviour, and therefore they do not see the need to change their own behaviour. In other cases, consumers do not want to give up their current behaviours or habits as they do not get anything directly in return for behaving more environmentally friendly. However, whenever people care about the environment and feel responsible for it, it has an impact on their ecological behaviour intentions.
Yet, the provision of information about flying and the polluting aspects it has, and the effects this has on passengers’ feelings of flight shame and thereafter on flight behaviour has not yet been researched. This literary gap will be addressed through the course of this research study. Furthermore, a knowledge intervention will be tested in a survey setting, where half of the participants will be provided with the provision of information about flying and the impact it has on the environment and the other half will not. It will be tested whether or not the provision of such information influences consumer (future) flying behaviour.
2.5 Sustainable actions with regards to flying
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traffic passenger demand is still going to increase until at least 2030 (Statista, 2018). The percentage of leisure flights, which can be categorised as either vacations or visiting and or staying at a friend or family member (Doganis, 2002), is approximately 60% (Schiphol Group, 2014).
Due to the challenging matter of the growing air travelling industry, and additionally, the environmentally harmful effect this has, many airlines are taking the environment into account by trying to operate less harmfully. This is done in various ways. Some eco-friendly airlines nowadays are Alaska Airlines, Delta Airlines, American Airlines, KLM, and jetBlue (Alternative Airlines, 2019). What they all have in common is that they all aim for a more sustainable way of air travelling by reducing their carbon footprints. However, they all have a slightly different approach in how they try to achieve this goal. A few examples worth mentioning are the usage of ‘renewable jet fuel’ (jetBlue, 2019), passengers paying a little extra to make their flight Co2 neutral, this programme is called CO2ZERO (KLM, 2019), building new less polluting airplanes (American Airlines, 2014), donating to special projects such as ‘The Nature Conservancy’ to support protection of forests (Delta Airlines, 2019) and minimizing waste and promoting recycling on board and on the ground (Alaska Airlines, 2019).
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pay more in order to compensate, whether this is for green products or with regards to Co2 emission.
Cheung, Kragt and Burton (2015) conducted research on the willingness to pay for voluntary carbon offset (VCO) among Australian air travellers. They found that most of the participants of their research preferred not to buy an offset. In which the term ‘offset’ means to compensate in monetary values for their carbon emissions. Regarding the participants that were willing to buy an offset, they were more interested in investing in projects close to their home rather than in other states or overseas. They basically want to see what they are investing in, and this would be possible when this happens in their own environment or region. Furthermore, participants mentioned that airlines should present ‘more information (and evidence) about their carbon offset projects; to increase transparency and public confidence that offset money is truly invested in offsetting carbon emissions’ (Cheung et al., 2015: 25). Lu and Shon (2011) studied whether Asian air travellers are willing to pay for carbon offsets. Their findings are in line with those of Cheung et al. (2015) and also clearly state that airlines should provide more information about aviation emissions and the impact this has on the environment.
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2.6 Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework (Figure 1) shows how the provision of information about flying and the effect it has on the environment has an impact on consumers’ flight behaviour. Flight behaviour can be defined in terms of flight frequency, length of flights (continental or inter-continental) and whether they fly or not at all. The impact can be mediated by feelings of flight shame which might be triggered by the provision of information about flying (IV). The independent variable consists of two different modes; either information or no information about flying and the polluting effects this has. The moderator influencing the impact of information provision on flight behaviour is when one might consider paying extra taxes for Co2 emissions and/or choosing a sustainable airline to fly with.
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3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Design & participants
Design
A quantitative research design was used for this study whereby a survey with a manipulated element was distributed online. The survey was created with the use of Qualtrics. While performing this field research, quantitative data could be collected and analysed later on to give an answer to the main research question: Is flight shame triggered by the provision of information about flying and the consequences it has on the environment, and does this, in the end, influence people's flight behaviour? Furthermore, the manipulated experiment was added to the survey to be able to test and measure whether the provision of information triggers feelings of flight shame and thus has an influence on consumer flight behaviour. The manipulated element involves the inclusion or exclusion of a text containing information about the polluting aspects of flying. The survey participants were randomly assigned to the two different conditions of the manipulated variable.
Participants
The survey participants were reached and approached through different social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook and with the use of different WhatsApp groups.
The data sample, consisting of survey participants of this study, consists of people with different nationalities. This is due to the fact that the distributor of the survey has quite some international contacts, especially on channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook.
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consisted of people with an age between 50-59 (10,3%). The properties of the final sample will be discussed further in the next chapter.
3.2 Procedure
The survey was distributed in the period from April 15th until April 25th. When participants
received the link with the survey (via different channels as described in the previous paragraph) they just had to click on the link and were automatically redirected to the survey in Qualtrics.
The first message shown to the survey participants explained that the data would be handled anonymously and with care, it would not be shared with any third parties, and it would truly be used for the purpose of this research. Moreover, participants were told that the survey would be about ‘consumer flight behaviour’, but focusing on leisure travellers only. First of all, participants were asked about their demographics such as age group, gender and level of education. After that, half of the participants (by randomization) were provided with a message showing and telling them how bad air travel is for the environment and what its consequences are with regards to global warming. Participants were then provided with a few statements to test to what extent they experience feelings of flight shame. Both groups were provided with these same statements and could indicate to what extent they felt ashamed. The next section of the survey asked the participants if they were willing to pay more money for their flight to fly Co2 neutral (this is the CO2ZERO programme from airline KLM). Information about this CO2ZERO programme from KLM was provided to the participants so that they could be made aware of what it entails. The last block of questions tested the participants’ future flight behaviour. This set of questions was focused on one year from the present and asked whether the participants planned to fly or not at all, approximately how often (frequency) and whether these flights will be intercontinental or continental (length of flights). Lastly, a set of questions was asked to measure the participants’ environmental values. It could potentially be the case that whenever a participant would indicate that they cared about the environment, they would score differently on the survey subjects than a person who would indicate themselves as less caring for the environment.
3.3 Materials
The variables mentioned earlier were operationalized with the use of existing scales and based on findings from the literature review. The survey consisted of the following sections:
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approximately ten years per age group (e.g. 30-39, 40-49 etc.). The age groups were divided in this way so that more specific conclusions could be drawn in the context of these different age categories. Gender was divided into female, male and other to be ‘gender neutral’. Furthermore, there were six different options for the highest level of education which flow from least education to most education.
In the second block of the survey, half of the participants were provided with a text. This text was from the BBC. The text described how easy it is to fly nowadays but it also focused on the polluting aspects and the impact flying has on the environment. This text was chosen as it provided quite some basic information and numbers about flying and the impact this has. Furthermore, the BBC is a trusted and well-known source and the text is easily readable even for people that do not understand English very well. This text was chosen because it is a typical text that is provided when one wants to inform people about the polluting aspects of the air travel industry. By reading the text provided, the participants could gain more knowledge and awareness about the polluting aspects of the air travel industry.
The third block measured feelings of flight shame. As there were no existing scales (yet) to measure flight shame specifically, an existing scale for measuring embarrassment in general was chosen. The embarrassment scale of Dahl, Manchanda and Argo (2001) was used for this. The embarrassment scale by Dahl et al. measures three specific elements, whether the participant is embarrassed, feels awkward and/or uncomfortable when ‘buying a specific product’. For the purpose of this research, the statements were slightly adapted and made applicable for this study to be able to measure feelings of flight shame. The participants saw the following five statements and could indicate on a seven-point Likert scale to what extent they agreed with the statement (1= strongly disagree to 7= strongly agree). The statements were: (1) I feel uncomfortable thinking about the environmental impact of my flying behaviour, (2) I feel embarrassed when thinking about the environmental impact when I fly, (3) I feel ashamed when I think about the environmental impact of my flying behaviour, (4) I feel okay when thinking about the environmental impact of my flying behaviour, (5) I feel awkward when thinking about the impact my flying behaviour has on the environment. The statistics for this flight shame scale were as follows: the mean was 3,97, Standard Deviation was 7,07 and Cronbach’s alpha was .877.
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a bit extra for their flight to fly Co2 neutral. In the survey, information about this CO2ZERO programme of KLM was provided and afterwards the question was asked if the participant was willing to go ahead with this proposal or not. There was also the option ‘I am not sure’. After this proposal, a question was posed whereby participants were asked if they could support their answer. This was an open question, meaning that participants could enter their argument(s) themselves. It would be of interest to know what the reason behind their choice was.
The fifth block measured participants future flight behaviour. Again, these questions were focused on travelling by airplane for leisure purposes only. Furthermore, the questions in this block were focused on the period from now until one year from now. Three questions were asked. The first question concerned whether the participant planned on travelling by airplane in the coming year. The second question measured how often in this coming year (flight frequency). And the third question measured whether these flights were intercontinental or continental flights or a combination of these two (length of flight).
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3.4 Analysis plan
After all the sample data was collected in Qualtrics, the data was transferred into SPSS. SPSS is a software that is used to analyse statistical data. The first step was to clean the sample data set and to look for any outliers or errors and remove these from the data.
Statistical techniques
Firstly, the descriptive statistics were conducted to give an overview of the sample data. Secondly, a few independent sample t-tests were performed to allow for the comparison of two different groups with one another. The comparison was either between the group that saw the manipulated message versus the group that did not see that message and compare their future flying behaviour and level of flight shame with one another. Thirdly, the Hayes’ PROCESS tool, which is a specific tool within SPSS, was the statistical test that will be used for both the mediation and the moderation analysis. In this study, this tool can measure whether or not and to what extent flight shame mediates the impact from the IV on the DV and whether or not the choice for a sustainable airline moderates the impact from the IV on the DV. Fourthly, the answers that were given to the open question (where participants could argue why they are willing to pay for the CO2ZERO programme or not), were coded to give more elaborated insight into their arguments. Fifthly, a bivariate correlation was conducted in SPSS to test the relation between the average amount of flight shame and the average value for environmental values. Lastly, three One-way ANOVA tests were conducted to be able to provide some complementary findings of the study.
Internal and external validity
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4. RESULTS
In this chapter, descriptive statistics, based on frequencies, will be provided as well as answers on the formulated research questions. This will give an answer to the problem statement: ‘Is flight shame triggered by the provision of information about flying and the consequences it has on the environment, and does this, in the end, influence people's flight behaviour’?
A total of 200 participants started with the survey. However, 35 participants did start with the survey but did not complete the survey. One of the most common things to do here is to remove these participants from the data set to minimize and remove the missing values before conducting the analyses. Therefore these 35 participants were excluded from the data set, as these were considered as noisy participants. For the environmental values scale, one participant completed the entire survey but forgot to indicate the values for this scale. To be able to keep this participant within the data set, the missing values were replaced by the series mean. Eventually, a total of 165 participants was left to do the analyses with, which is a sufficient amount for the number of variables to test in this study.
After deleting the noisy participants from the data set, Cronbach’s alpha needed to be checked for both the flight shame scale and the environmental values scale. Before verifying the Cronbach’s alpha for the flight shame scale, one statement within the scale needed to be reversed as this statement was asked the other way around (positive) in comparison to the other 4 statements (negative). The variables needed to be re-coded into the same variables for the reverse item in the flight shame scale ‘I feel okay when thinking about the environmental impact of my flying behaviour’. Thus, values that were entered by participants as 7 will now be a 1 and the other way around for all the values in this scale for this particular statement. As such, it can be interpreted in the same way as the rest of the items on this scale.
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After the Cronbach’s alpha was checked, two new variables needed to be computed for the scales of flight shame and environmental values. This was done in the following way for the flight shame scale: (SH1 + SH2 + SH3 + SH4 + SH5) / 5 = average of shame scale. It was done in the same way for the environmental values scale.
4.1 Descriptive statistics
In this part of the results chapter, an overview in the form of descriptive statistics will be provided on each of the different sections that were part of the survey. The results will be discussed in detail in the discussion chapter.
Participant demographics
For the demographics of the participants, three questions were being asked: gender, age and highest level of education. Regarding the gender of the participants, 35,8% of the participants was male, 63% female and 1,2% other. Regarding the age of the participants, the vast majority was between 21 and 29 years old (75,2%). The second largest group consisted of people with an age between 50-59 (10,3%). Furthermore, 4,8% were between 18-20 years old, 3,6% were between 30-39 years old, 3,6% were between 40-49 years old, 1,8% were 17 years old or younger and 0,6% of the participants was 60 or older. With regards to the highest level of education, 36% of the participants had a Bachelor (HBO), 34,8% a Master, 16,5% a Bachelor (WO), 6,1% compulsory education, 3,7% a Doctorate and 3% completed Secondary Vocational Education.
Manipulating element (BBC text)
The participants were randomly distributed to one of the two experimental conditions. From all 165 valid participants in the data set, 50,9% did not see the text from the BBC about the impact of air travelling on the environment, whereas 49,1% did see the text from the BBC. As such, the participants were almost evenly distributed across the two conditions.
Flight shame scale
26 KLM CO2ZERO option
70,9% of the survey participants were willing to compensate for their flight by making use of the KLM CO2ZERO programme from KLM, thus by paying a little bit extra for their flight (approximately one Euro per flight hour). 12,1% of the participants indicated not to go ahead with this and 17% were not sure whether they would go ahead with this offer. After this question, there was an open question in which the participant could argue and support their answer given. 77,6% of the participants did this. These answers were coded, analyzed and presented later on in this results chapter.
Participants future flight behaviour
62,4% of the participants were planning on travelling by airplane for leisure purposes in this coming year. 21,2% said ‘maybe’, and 16,4% said ‘no’ to this question. The participants that indicated ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’ were presented the question on how many leisure trips they were going to make in this coming year. Responses were as follows; 1 trip (42%), 2 trips (25,4%), 3 trips (16,7%), 4 trips (10,9) and 6 or more (5,1%). The follow-up question then was whether these flights were continental, intercontinental or a combination of both. The results show that 55,1% indicated to fly continental, 18,1% intercontinental and 26,8% a combination of continental and intercontinental flights.
Environmental values
The environmental values scale consisted of six different statements that were testing to what extent the participant values the environment. The participant could choose to what extent they agreed with the statements on a scale from 1-5 (1= strongly agree, 5= strongly disagree) . A full overview of the different statements and the participants’ scores in percentages can be found in appendix 5.
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4.2 Research questions
RQ 1: Does the provision of information about flying and the effect it has on the environment, triggers feelings of flight shame? To be able to answer this research question, an Independent Sample t-Test was performed in SPSS. With the use of such a test, the means of the two different groups (group 1 which saw the text from BBC and group 2 that did not see the text from BBC) can be compared on their levels of flight shame. The outcome of the test (table 1) showed that the average shame mean for not seeing the text is 3,98 and the average shame mean for seeing the text is 3,96. These means are evidently very close to one another. The meaning of an average shame mean of 3,98 and/or 3,96, which is close to the value ‘4’ in the scale, indicates that they neither agree nor disagree on the statements. Comparatively, ‘3’ indicated slight disagreement on the statement. The independent samples t-test was not significant, t(162) = 0,095, p = 0,925. The average amount of flight shame of people who did not see the text (M= 3,98, SD= 1,49) does not differ from the average amount of flight shame of people that did see the text (M= 3,96, SD= 1,32). This means that there is no significant difference between people who saw the text and people that did not see the text and how much flight shame they are having. Furthermore, according to their average mean score of approximately 4, participants did not indicate to have a very strong opinion towards feelings of flight shame.
N Mean Std. Deviation
No text 84 3,98 1,49
Text 80 3,96 1,32
Table 1, Independent Samples Test flight shame in combination with manipulating element
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are planning on travelling by airplane for leisure purposes in the coming year is even slightly higher for the participants that saw the text (66,7%) in comparison to people that did not see the text (58,3%). Furthermore, a Chi-square test was performed to analyze whether there is a significant difference between these groups. The square test was not significant, Chi-square(2) = 1,372, p = 0,504. It can, therefore, be said that there is no significant difference between the participants that saw the text and participants that did not see the text and their plans to travel by airplane for leisure purposes in the coming year.
‘Are you planning on travelling by airplane for leisure purposes in
this coming year?’
No text was shown Text was shown
Yes 58,3% 66,7%
Maybe 22,6% 19,8%
No 19% 13,6%
Table 2, Cross table with planning leisure trips in combination with manipulating element
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Table 3, Independent Samples Test amount of leisure trips in combination with manipulating element
RQ 3: Does the choice for a sustainable airline moderate the impact of information provision on flight behavior? To be able to answer this research question, the Hayes PROCESS tool in SPSS was utilised. In order to test whether the choice for a sustainable airline moderates the impact of information provision on future flight behaviour, the model 5 was used wherein there is an independent (X) and dependent variable (Y), one mediator (M) and one moderator (W). For this study, Y is the future flying behaviour, X is the manipulated element (text from BBC, yes or no), M is the average amount of flight shame, and W is whether the participant wants to pay for the CO2ZERO programme or not. The output of the test can be found in appendix 1. By having a look at the output of the test, a couple of things can be concluded. Figure 2 shows how the variables of the conceptual framework are related to one another.
Firstly, the output shows that the manipulated element (X) has no significant effect (p= 0,1857) on future flying behaviour (Y). This directly answers the second research question ‘does the provision of information about flying and the effect it has on the environment, impacts flight behaviour?’. Thus, the text from the BBC with information about flying and the impact it has on the environment does not significantly influence participants future flying behaviour. The coefficient shows a negative value of -,1571, meaning that the provision of information has a slightly negative influence on future flight behaviour. The second research question can also be answered by having a look at the output of this test ‘does the provision of information about flying and the effect it has on the environment, trigger feelings of flight shame?’. The output shows that the effect from the manipulated element (X) is not significant (p= 0,9247 ) on the average amount of flight shame (M). Furthermore, the coefficient has a negative value of -,0210. Thus, the text from the BBC with information about flying and the impact it has on the environment does not significantly trigger feelings of flight shame. However it does have a slightly negative impact on feelings of flight shame. Thirdly, it can be seen in the output that the average amount of flight shame (M) does not significantly (p= 0,3743) influences future flying behaviour (Y). Here the coefficient has a value of ,0376, meaning that the amount of
N Mean Std. Deviation
No text 68 2,10 1,29
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flight shame somewhat positively influences future flight behaviour. When having a look at the moderation effect of the choice for the CO2ZERO programme (W), on the relation between the manipulating element (X) on future flying behaviour (Y), the moderation effect is not significant (p= 0,1273) and the coefficient shows a negative value of -,4573. Thus it can be said that the future flying behaviour of the participants is not significantly influenced by the choice for the CO2ZERO programme of KLM. The effect of the sustainable airline programme negatively influences the effect of X on Y. Lastly, the interaction effect between the manipulating element (X) and the CO2ZERO programme (W) is not significant (p= 0,4481), with a coefficient of ,1173. This means that the provision of the manipulated element somewhat positively influences the consideration for a sustainable airline programme.
Figure 2, Conceptual framework with p-values and coefficients
With these outputs the problem statement can also be answered: Is flight shame triggered by the provision of information about flying and the consequences it has on the environment, and does this, in the end, influence people's flight behaviour? It can be concluded that feelings of flight shame are not significantly triggered due to the manipulating element. Moreover, feelings of flight shame do not influence people’s future flying behaviour.
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4.3 Complementary findings of the study
This part of the results chapter zooms in on the findings that are not directly providing an answer to one of the research questions or the problem statement but are still interesting to mention.
The first part gives insight into the different reasons that participants gave to the open question of whether they would like to compensate for their flying behaviour by making use of the CO2ZERO programme from KLM, by paying a little bit extra (1 Euro per flight hour) for their flight. As mentioned before, 70,9% of the survey participants were willing to compensate for their flight, 12,1% of the participants indicated not to go ahead with this and 17% were not sure whether they would go ahead with this offer. The open question in which the participant could argue and support their given answers was filled in by 77,6% of the participants (128 participants out of 165). The extensive coding document can be found in the appendix of this document. After the answers on the open questions had been coded, two pie charts could be created to show the main categories of answers for both the participants with the positive attitude (figure 3) and the negative attitude (figure 4).
81 out of 128 participants intended to have a positive attitude towards the CO2ZERO programme of KLM. Their main reasons were that it is not much money to pay (1 Euro per flight hour), that it is a fairly easy option to be able to compensate for the environment with your flying behaviour and the third reason given was that it reduces their feelings of guilt or even makes them feel better about themselves. The most important thing to mention here is that all answers of participants with positive attitudes fell under one of these three categories. Almost half of the participants (48%) with a positive attitude towards this programme mentioned that it was not much money and therefore, did not see a reason to contest spending this money on something good like this programme.
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Figure 4, Categorization of negative answers given to the KLM CO2ZERO programme
47 out of 128 intended to have a negative attitude towards the CO2ZERO programme of KLM. Their main reasons were that they were quite skeptical (26%) about what KLM and other big companies are saying, they want them to be more transparent about what the money is actually going towards. Furthermore, 23% of the participants mention that plane tickets are already expensive, so they are not willing to pay extra for this purpose. Thirdly, about one fifth of the participants (22%) with a negative attitude towards this programme of KLM, mentioned that it will not make any difference whether they pay that one Euro or not per flight hour. A few other reasons that were mentioned albeit not very often were that there are better alternatives (4%), participants that don’t care about it (4%), that there are other taxes used for this matter (2%) and that it is just a marketing strategy (2%). Furthermore, 17% of the answers given to this open question were not specific or unclear. The remarkable difference between participants with a positive attitude and the participants with a negative attitude is that for participants with a positive attitude, only three main categories were created, whereas for the negative attitude eight categories were created. This signifies a greater variety of reasons for holding a negative attitude towards a certain programme like this than there are for holding a positive attitude towards such a programme.
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Thus it can be said that the more someone cares about the environment, the more feelings of flight shame are present.
To be able to analyse whether participants that care more about the environment score differently in their response to the question of whether they would like to pay for the CO2ZERO programme of KLM, in comparison to participants that care less about the environment, a One-way ANOVA was performed. For this One-One-way ANOVA, the independent variable and the dependent variable were reversed. This One-way ANOVA was not significant, F(2, 162), = 1,032, p = 0,359. Therefore it can be said that the extent to which people care about the environment (mean score of environmental values) does not significantly influence their willingness to pay for the CO2ZERO programme of KLM. Table 4 shows that most of the people are willing to pay for the CO2ZERO programme (n=117). These people had an average mean score of 2,04 for environmental values. Thiswas close to ‘2’ on a scale from 1-5 (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). This was still high which means that they do agree on most of the environmental values statements. Another finding is that participants that indicated not to be willing to pay for the CO2ZERO programme score even higher, with an average mean score of 1,99 which indicates that they on average care more about the environment than the people who indicated their willingness to pay for such a programme, even though differences are not large, nor significant.
Table 4, Willingness to pay for KLM CO2ZERO programme in comparison with the mean score for environmental values
Another interesting comparison is between participants that indicated their plans to fly in the coming year(whether definite, possible or not at all planned) with how much they care about the environment (their environmental values). A One-way ANOVA was conducted to be able to show insights into this matter. The output showed that there is no significant difference F(2,162), = 1,103, p = 0,334 between the three groups. Furthermore, table 5 shows that the differences in mean scores of environmental values for the three different groups are very close to one another (in which 1 means that they care a lot about the environment and 5 means that
N Mean Std. Deviation
Yes 117 2,04 ,58
No 20 1,99 ,70
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they do not care about the environment). Thus, it can be said that the group that is not planning to fly in the coming year, which is group ‘no’, has the lowest mean score of 1,91 and therefore, cares most about the environment out of all three of the groups.
Table 5, One-way ANOVA test for environmental values in combination with planning to fly
The next interesting insight that will be shown about the data is the comparison between the level of flight shame and the willingness to compensate for their flights with the use of the CO2ZERO programme. A One-way ANOVA was conducted to test for this matter. The output shows no significant difference between the three different groups F(2,161), = 0,812, p = 0,446. Furthermore, it can be seen in table 6 that participants that indicated their willingness to compensate and thus make use of the CO2ZERO programme by paying a little bit extra for their flight have a slightly higher average mean score for flight shame (M= 4,05). However, this mean score of approximately 4 has a meaning of neither agree nor disagree on the statements with regards to flight shame. Thus even this group does not show a high average mean for feelings of flight shame.
Table 6, One-way ANOVA test for flight shame in combination with willingness to compensate with CO2ZERO programme N Mean Std. Deviation Yes 103 2,09 ,58 Maybe 35 2,10 ,60 No 27 1,91 ,58 N Mean Std. Deviation Yes 117 4,05 1,36 No 19 3,76 1,57
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According to table 7, the willingness to pay a little bit extra for a flight, by making use of the CO2ZERO programme from KLM, does not seem to be influenced by the manipulating element as the percentages in both columns are not considerably different from one another. A Chi-square test was performed and was not significant, Chi-Chi-square(2) = 0,97, p = 0,953. It can, therefore, be said that there is no significant difference between the participants that saw the text and participants that did not see the text and their willingness to pay for the CO2ZERO programme of airline KLM.
Table 7, Cross table manipulating element in combination with willingness to compensate with CO2ZERO programme
Willingness to pay extra by making use of the CO2ZERO
programme
No text was shown Text was shown
Yes 50,4% 49,6%
No 50% 50%
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5. DISCUSSION
In this Master thesis, I wanted to investigate whether feelings of flight shame are triggered by the provision of information about flying and the consequences it has on the environment and if this, in the end, influences people's future flying behaviour. In this part of the paper the results will be thoroughly discussed, as well as the limitations of the study. Recommendations for future research will also be provided.
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of approximately ‘4’, which meant that participants neither agreed nor disagreed on the statements regarding flight shame. A way to interpret this result might be to read the average score of 4 as ‘don’t know’ instead of ‘neither agree nor disagree’. Moreover, the information that was provided in the message from the BBC contained general information and basic facts about the airline industry and it might be the case that many participants were already aware of the information provided, and so, it may not have been very groundbreaking or influential for their future flying behaviour or feelings of flight shame.
The second research question investigated whether the provision of information about flying and the effect it has on the environment impacts participants future flying behaviour. The results of the survey indicated that there is no significant difference between the participants that saw the text and the participants that did not see the text and their plans to travel by airplane for leisure purposes in the coming year. One explanation for this occurrence might be that participants might have booked their flights already in advance for the coming year. Therefore the manipulating message from the BBC might not have been able to influence their coming travel plans. Another way of looking at it could be explained by Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002). They investigated that this discrepancy between knowledge and behaviour is due to the ‘direct versus indirect experience’. In line with this, it could mean that participants might read about how bad air travel is for the environment in the message from the BBC, yet they do not directly experience any consequences of travelling by airplane in their direct environment. In other words, they might be aware of the consequences but because they do not directly see these consequences in their own lives, it does not really affect their behaviour and thus, they are still planning to travel by airplane in the near future. Another reason why participants who have read the manipulating message from the BBC yet still indicate to travel by airplane in the coming year might be due to the fact that it is quite hard to change someone’s behaviour and consumers are not willing to forfeit personal comfort in favor of long-term collective interests (Staats, Wit & Midden, 1996).
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return trip, however, this was not explicitly indicated within the question itself - assuming participants would know the meaning of a ‘trip’ and not seeing the word trip as one single flight. An average of 2,1 or 2,2 trips in the coming year is quite high compared to the average of 1,3 times that Dutch people on average travel by airplane per year (Zijlstra & Huibregtse, 2018). Not all participants who completed the survey had Dutch nationality, but the majority of the participants were Dutch or were living in The Netherlands, therefore this average amount of travelling by airplane has been chosen. Furthermore, an explanation for the difference between 1,3 and 2,1 trips on a yearly basis might be because of the fact that the majority of the participants (75%) consisted of young adults in the age category 21-29. This group of people love to travel (by airplane) ( Sakkers, 2016) and therefore the average amount of trips that people are planning for the coming year is higher in the survey compared to the average amount of trips that the average Dutch resident makes. Furthermore, the number 1,3 consists of both leisure and business trips, therefore the average number of 2,1 trips in the survey is relatively high as this number only consists of leisure trips.
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The main reasons provided by the participants with positive attitudes were that it is not much money to pay, that it is a fairly easy option to be able to compensate for the environment and the third reason given was that it reduces their feelings of guilt. The main reasons provided by the participants with negative attitudes were that they were quite sceptical about what KLM and other big companies are saying and they want them to be more transparent about where the money is actually going. Furthermore, they mentioned that plane tickets are already expensive and one fifth mentioned that it will not make any difference whether they pay that 1 Euro or not per flight hour. Cheung, Kragt and Burton (2015) stated that participants that were willing to buy an offset, are more interested in investing in projects close to their home rather than in other parts of the world. They basically want to see what they are investing in, and this would be possible when this happens in their own environment. Cheung, Kragt and Burton (2015: 25) also mentioned that airlines should present ‘more information (and evidence) about their carbon offset projects; to increase transparency’. Lu and Shon (2011) agree on that and state that airlines should provide more information about aviation emissions and the impact it has on the environment. These findings of Cheung et al. (2015) and Lu and Shon (2011) are both in line with the results of this study as many participants who showed a negative attitude towards the CO2ZERO programme of KLM were also quite sceptical and wanted to see more transparency and information regarding what happens with the money that is invested in such programmes.
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the extent to which people care about the environment does not significantly influence their willingness to pay for the CO2ZERO programme of KLM. However, while most of the participants indicated a willingness to pay, the participants that indicated not to be willing to pay for such programme scored higher on environmental values. The reasoning behind this might be that they know that paying 1 euro extra per flight hour to be able to fly Co2 neutral is not enough to make a difference and they are sceptical about what really happens with this money. Additionally, participants that indicated a willingness to compensate have a slightly higher average mean score for flight shame. However, this mean score of approximately 4 has a meaning of neither agree nor disagree on the statements with regards to flight shame. It was expected that participants with a high score for feelings of flight shame would be willing to compensate with CO2ZERO. However, the results show that on average, participants did not show large values for feelings of flight shame. Lastly, the participants’ willingness to pay for the CO2ZERO programme did not seem to be influenced by the manipulating element. It was expected that people who had seen the message from the BBC would have been willing to compensate to a larger extent than people who would not have seen this message. However, this is not the case. In general, it can be said that the manipulating message did not influence people as expected.
5.1 Practical implications
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sceptical, their trust in the companies and willingness to donate money for such programmes. Moreover, quite a lot of participants mentioned that 1 Euro per flight hour cannot really make a difference. Therefore it might be good for airlines to slightly increase this amount. This recommendation is still a bit questionable as in this way it might be less attractive for passengers to choose this option, as it is more expensive. Only passengers who care a lot about the environment and passengers with many feelings of flight shame would be willing to compensate even if the amount is a little bit higher. Yet, on the other hand, it might be the case that these specific kinds of people who care greatly about the environment do not even fly anymore, therefore it might be expected that less money will be collected via this way if the prices go up.
5.2 Limitations and opportunities for future research
The first limitation of the study is that the manipulated message did not work out the way it was expected. The choice for the message from BBC is seen as the limitation. It did not lead to any significant differences between the two different groups on the variables measured. Moreover, it was challenging to find a suitable text to use for this purpose, as it needed to be an informing text consisting of easily understandable English, a suitable length, it must be a trustworthy source and the information should be relevant for this research. Therefore the first recommendation for future research is to always pretest the manipulating element. This has not happened in this study. Furthermore, a manipulation check was also not performed in this study, but this is also recommended to do, with the purpose to test the effectiveness of the manipulation. Additionally, with regards to the manipulating message, in this study, it was chosen as the diffusion of information to increase knowledge and in the end influence consumer behaviour. Another suggestion might be to choose a more impactful and groundbreaking manipulating message instead of a general information message from the BBC.
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questioning and measuring their future flight behaviour could be to firstly, ask how much they have flown in the past couple of years, and if they are willing to reduce this number of flights in the next couple of years on average. It is important to make this concrete in order to let the participants indicate how much they are going to fly on average on a yearly basis instead of mentioning that they are going to fly less in general. Should this be made more concrete, the chance for a socially desirable answer would be less likely.
Also, something which was not taken into account beforehand, but was realised during the data collection procedure is the following. There was no option in the survey for people that are not flying anymore (e.g. due to being environmentally conscious). It is uncertain how these participants have completed the survey if they have even completed the survey. It might be the case that they started the survey but dropped out halfway through, realising that the survey was not suitable for them. This may have resulted in the unfinished responses which were deleted from the data sample. A suggestion to deal with this in future research is to make the survey more suitable for different target groups so that everyone is able to tell their story as to why they fly and/or why not. The information from this target group would be very interesting and it is fascinating to know what moves these people to not travel by airplane (anymore). An additional advantage of this idea is that more people would be able to complete the survey, which in turn results in a higher response rate and more insightful data. One important thing to keep in mind about this target group is that it is not necessary to measure feelings of flight shame, as these people are not flying anymore and thus also do not have feelings of flight shame because why would you be ashamed of something you are consciously not doing anymore. Something that is interesting to know, however, is to investigate what the opinion is of this target group with regards to the CO2ZERO programme of KLM to fly Co2 neutral.
Moreover, regarding the participants of the study, the results of the study are more generalizable when the data sample consists of a more diverse population instead of 75% of the participants consisting of millennials. Also, the survey has been completed by mainly Dutch people, however a guess of around 15%-20% of the participants might have a different nationality. It would have been interesting to know the exact number, however, this was not a question in the survey and therefore it cannot be said with certainty.
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from the BBC in which the environmental impact of air travelling is explained had no effect. Moreover, the average score of ‘4’ for flight shame indicated that many participants neither agreed nor disagreed on statements on flight shame. This means that they do not have a strong attitude towards this new phenomenon. Thus, it is still doubtful where this new phenomenon of flight shame is coming from and why some people tend to have a lot of flight shame compared to others. Furthermore, it is unclear whether this has all to do with the knowledge people have about the environmental impact or whether they are just very environmentally friendly and conscious consumers. Therefore a suggestion for future research is to investigate the antecedents of flight shame to a broader extent. This is necessary to gain a better understanding of what really triggers this new phenomenon.
5.3 Conclusion
![Jan-Wouter Zwart. The syntax of Dutch [Review of: Jan Wouter Zwart. The Syntax of Dutch (2011)]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==)